


She Gave Him A Heart

by SamJoinedtheReconCorps



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Caring, F/M, Introspection, Vax POV, Worry, because this is just the beginning, introspective rewrite, post ep 9, since liam talked about it in the campaign wrap up, spoiler for the whisper from episode 7 i suppose, vaxleth if you squint i guess, where feelings slowly start to grow
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-10
Updated: 2021-03-10
Packaged: 2021-03-16 17:20:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,112
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29953332
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SamJoinedtheReconCorps/pseuds/SamJoinedtheReconCorps
Summary: Keyleth dropped a bloody heart at Vax's feet - little does Vax know how symbolic that gesture will become.
Relationships: Keyleth/Vax'ildan (Critical Role)
Comments: 1
Kudos: 12





	She Gave Him A Heart

**Author's Note:**

> so i'm back with the critical role ship that started it all - the one that brought me back from my fanfiction writer grave and breathed new life into my dormant writerscape
> 
> Vax and Keyleth, fuck do I love them so so much, and right now as i'm rewatching campaign 1 with my boyfriend, i'm falling in love with the two of them all over again, and after watching the minksi moment and the Whisper and then Knowing I just couldn't help myself and just had to write it
> 
> I really hope you guys like this short little rewrite fic!!

Getting out of the duregar’s Emberhold was proving to be more troublesome than sneaking into it. They’d already fought a handful of guards, making all kinds of noise that Vax knew was going to come back and bite them in the ass - but for now all they could do was clear out the floor of any remaining enemy fighters and see if there was anything useful that they could take.

They’d made it to a temple room of sorts, a place of worship where there was a statue of a man Vax wasn’t familiar with. A statue of a duregar god, Pike tells them, making Tiberius curiously examine the statue further while Vax gives the room a quick once over and Keyleth in Minksi form approaches the altar.

Finding nothing of note, Vax is about to head back out when Keyleth pads over to him, dropping something at his feet, and nudging it with her nose towards him.

She looks adorable, and Vax was going to say as much until he looked down at the rotting, mangled mess she’d brought him. Upon closer inspection, he saw that she gave him a heart. Despite the bloody gift, Vax can’t help but smile a bit. He remembers his mother’s cat from when Vex and he were children, of the mice and birds it would sometimes bring to their doorstep. Gifts of dead things for people they liked - and while Keyleth had been acting a little strange these last few days in the Underdark, this was probably a feline thing. A sabertooth tiger wasn’t exempt of that rule, he supposed.

He reaches out, scratching Keyleth behind the ear. She closes her eyes, nuzzling closer to his hand, giving a low purr that Vax can somehow feel in his chest. It fills him with warmth and affection for their awkward druid.

Carefully, he nudges the heart aside with his boot, patting the side of Minksi-Keyleth’s head, before he ducks out of the room to find his sister.

* * *

Vax should have trusted his gut - he should have listened to that little voice in his head that told him that Keyleth wasn’t doing so hot.

Usually so soft spoken and rather non-confrontational, Keyleth had clashed heads with Kima in a way Vax hadn’t seen her do with anyone before. It was unlike her, and it was worrying.

Sure, he also wasn’t going to blindly trust Lady Kima, even if she was Allura’s friend, but he knew better than to be so openly opposed to her plan to take the horn of Orcus from K’Varn. That shit was going to make its way to the surface and do much more damage than it was already doing, so it would probably definitely be best to take care of that as quickly as possible. As to whether Kima would be keeping the horn afterwards to hand over to her religious order...well, that would be a conversation they’d have once they had the horn.

Keyleth on the other hand had made her position extremely clear - and a part of Vax was secretly proud that she had worked up the courage to speak up about it.

Everything was probably just compounding on itself - having gone through the Emberhold, knowing Grog was with the queen, being helpless to go after him at the moment. These were probably all things that were getting Keyleth on edge, and Vax understood that. He was on edge too - and in pain. Despite Pike’s help, his foot throbbed, and he refused to inspect the damage further because he didn’t want to see how bad it looked. He knew that for the time being, he wouldn’t be at his best, but he didn’t want to dwell on that.

He glanced over at Keyleth, seeing where she was curled up trying to get some rest. She didn’t look too comfortable, but she was managing, and so Vax put his worries aside as best he could and tried to get some rest too.

* * *

“I think we should get out of here,” Keyleth rushes out, her words barely getting to Vax as he’s finishing relieving himself on a nearby stalagmite. He glances back at the group, catching sight of Scanlan walking away with Kima, out of earshot.

“What? Why?” Vex asked, her tone quickly showing her disagreement.

“Look, we’ve got Grog, we’ve got - we’ve got Kima.” Keyleth pauses, slows herself down. “We came here to find Kima. That was our mission. I don’t - I don’t trust her.”

“We found her but we can’t leave without her,” Vex pointed out.

Vax shakes himself off, putting himself away and rejoining the group, saying, “We were sent here to bring back Kima.”

“And now you want to abandon her?” Vex follows up.

“What - no,” Keyleth answers.

“She’s not going to come with us until we’ve killed this K’Varn,” Vax tells her, although he’s sure he doesn’t have to remind her.

Grog, freshly reunited with the group, gives a nod of agreement. “That’s true.”

“Keyleth,” Vex starts, dropping her voice a little lower. “What’s your problem with Kima?”

“Yeah,” Grog gets out - and Vax is reminded that he wasn’t there when Keyleth and Kima had butt heads before they’d rested for the night. Or day. Whatever time it was down there.

“Well, look, she’s been a - she just gave me the wrong vibe, up front,” Keyleth says defensively.

“Okay, vibe,” Vex repeats, sounding completely unconvinced. “What did she do?”

“She’s, she’s - she’s been very rude -” Keyleth continues, and Vax notices her hands are shaking. “She also -”

Vex gives Keyleth a slow nod. “She’s been very tortured. Tortured, Keyleth.”

“True,” Grog agrees. He picks at one of the cuts on his chest - the torture that had been inflicted on him during his short stint with the queen. Vax couldn’t imagine how rough Kima had had it all that time stuck in that torture chamber.

“Right,” Keyleth concedes, but she doesn’t stop. “But look, look what happened - she’s brought countless, countless people down here only to meet their end.”

“Well, none of those people are us,” Tiberius says, a reassurance and a confidence in their abilities that Vax feels as well - with his words only being a little undercut by the fact that he’s still invisible.

The words do nothing for Keyleth, and, if anything, she seems even more agitated. “Right - but, not yet.”

“They met their end because they got captured,” Vex reasons with Keyleth. “We’re stronger.”

“Do you know something we don’t, Keyleth?” Vax finally asks. She’s being so unlike herself, refusing reassurances, pessimistic, mistrusting.

“Look,” Keyleth repeats, voice growing hard. “All I know is that only a fool believes that his path is the most virtuous.” She had completely ignored Vax’s question.

Grog raises his hand excitedly, immediately proving her point.

“See?” Keyleth says. “And he’s not the brightest one in our group.”

“I wholeheartedly agree,” Clarota adds, finally joining their conversation.

When he speaks up, Keyleth shrinks away slightly, an almost imperceptible movement, but one Vax picks up on instantly. Vax has trained in working in the shadows, in paying attention to fine details - picking up on this, especially from someone he cares about, is as easy as breathing to him. He notices the way Keyleth’s eyes turn skyward - or, how they would be turned skyward if there was sky above them.

And that’s when it hits him.

“She is unstable, cannot be trusted in her state,” Clarota finishes.

“Look,” Keyleth starts up again.

Vax holds his hand up, asking for a moment, now knowing how to diffuse the situation. “Hold on a second,” he says, before turning to Clarota. “That’s unfair. That’s unfair.”

“Why?” Keyleth asks.

Vax doesn’t look at her, continuing to hold Clarota’s gaze. “It has been a long road.” And now he turns to Keyleth, voice softening. “Keyleth, I know you’ve had a hard time. We all have. I know we’re miles below the surface of the world.” And that’s what it was, wasn’t it? Keyleth was a druid - her way of life required that connection to nature, needed it like flowers need sunshine to grow. They were surrounded by rock and stone, and the few other living beings they’d encountered were monsters and abominations, perversions of the very nature Keyleth was so attuned to. She was starved of the natural contact she was so used to - she was wilting, withering, and of course she would want to leave as soon as she could. And while Vax might have scoffed at her feelings for nature once upon a time, he could do nothing but feel how his heart ached for her now, for the isolation she must be feeling. She was scared, and she must be feeling so, so alone after being cut off from nature for so long.

But she wasn’t alone.

“We’re together,” Vax assured her, and he has to suppress the urge to reach out and take her hand. “We are family. Everyone here is here for you, as you have been for us.” He could see her eyes well with tears, but there was still a hardness to her features, a disbelieving streak that seemingly wanted to shake off his comfort. “Now I say we camp for the night, inside this schmuck’s tent. We stay here, we rest up. Sleep on it, and see how we’re all feeling in the morning.”

Keyleth sighed loudly, as if getting ready to argue against him, so Vax just repeated, “We’re here for you, Keyleth. We will protect you, as you have protected us. You’ve got a family with us.”

“How do we know we’re doing the right thing?” Keyleth asked, her voice breaking. “We killed a lot of people, you guys. We killed a lot of people.”

“Who in this world is without fault, who hasn’t made mistakes?” Vax gently responds. “We certainly all have.”

“Keyleth,” Vex says, following her brother’s words. “We’re keeping him, K’Varn, from killing even more.”

“How do we know we’re not just interfering with issues that aren’t our own?” Keyleth shoots back. “We didn’t know of any of this until we came down here - and look, she wants to take the horn, she wants the horn, and she wants to take it back herself.”

“We did,” Vex said.

“Why don’t we -” Keyleth starts.

“The bottom line is,” Vax continues, not wanting Keyleth to continue down that trail of thought, wanting to help calm her fraying nerves. “All of this insanity is going to bubble up to the surface if someone doesn’t stop it.”

“It already has been,” Vex reminds them. “All those creatures that have been coming up, Keyleth.”

“Remember, think back,” Vax tells her. “It has already begun, and no one is here to stop it except for Vox Machina. Us.”

“We promise, we will heed your warning,” Percy adds. “But we can’t run. We will heed it, though.”

Vax nods. “We got your back.”

Clarota slowly turns to Keyleth, the tentacles on his face twitching once. “We made a deal.”

“And we made a deal,” Percy agrees.  
“We did make a deal,” Vex nods.

“Look, I understand you, Clarota, and I’m on your side, I swear,” Keyleth assures the illithid. “But, a lot of people - there’ve been a lot of murderers who said they did the things that they did because their gods told them to do it.”

“Well, we’ll just be-” Percy starts.

“Right?” Keyleth asks, looking around for a sign of agreement.

“We’ll be cautious and we’ll have you to protect us,” Percy promises.

Tiberius reappears, dropping his invisibility and taking a step towards Keyleth. “Your highness, by the honor of all Stormwinds, I will let nothing happen to you. I swear it. I will fight til my death - and I have ways, of course, to get us all out of here whenever I damn well please.”

There was a murmur of agreement, knowing that Tiberius certainly had tricks to get them all away in a pinch.

“Do not worry,” he finished, giving her a soft pat on the back.

She shook her head, her next words coming in a whisper. “I just have a bad feeling.” She swallowed hard, blinking back her tears. “This horn can’t make it back up to the surface - you guys have to promise me that.”

“We’ll keep the - the horn from leaving,” Vex promised.

“She wants to take it back - why? If it's that bad, why does she want it?” Keyleth got out, shooting a mistrusting look in Kima’s direction.

“That may be so,” Vax started again. “But the evil that is brewing beneath the surface of the world will stretch up to everything we know.” He sees a tear finally fall, rolling down her cheek, past her sun kissed freckles. He sees the self doubt in her eyes. “And I know that you’ve made mistakes, I’ve certainly made mistakes. That is to live.” He holds her gaze, and is relieved to find that she doesn’t look away. “There is more at stake right now and we are the frontline. We’re the only ones who can stop it. Mistakes are alright.”

“The god in darkness will blot out the light,” Percy grimly adds.

“I just hope we’re not the darkness,” Keyleth answers.

Tiberius perks up. “Oh, do you need light?” He tapped his staff on the ground, lighting the crystals at the top with bright light.

Vax flinched, shying away from the abrupt brightness, catching sight of Keyleth and his sister doing the same.

“Oh - ah, oh,” Keyleth mumbled, raising a hand to block out the light.

“Is that - I’m sorry,” Tiberius apologized, most likely noticing everyone’s reactions as he also blinked rapidly to accustom himself to the light.

“Thanks, Tiberius,” Vex told him, at the same time Percy also gave a halfhearted, “Thank you.”

“Okay, um,” they hear Kima say loudly before the sound of her approaching footsteps is heard, a sure sign that they need to wrap up their talk.

“What, ay, what did I say - what, what did I say?” Grog asks Scanlan, giving him a scolding look. “You can’t keep it in for two seconds.”

“I - it’s, it’s my way,” Scanlan shrugs as he comes back to the group, following after Kima.

Grog shakes his head. “I mean, not that I blame you, my god.”

Now that Kima’s returned to them, Vax wants to make sure the conversation doesn’t escalate. “I think we’re all a little frayed. I think we need to rest,” he says, meeting Keyleth’s eyes again. “Let’s set up camp.”

“Yeah, let’s camp,” Grog nods.

Glancing between Grog and Vax, Kima adds, “I agree. We have quite a journey ahead of us.”

“Indeed,” Clarota, miraculously, also agrees. “We’re not too far from Yug’voril. Let us rest.”

There are a few more nods of assent, but Vax can see Keyleth isn’t looking at any of them. She’s looking at Kima.

“Kima,” Keyleth says, drawing the halfling’s attention.

Although she’s guarded, Kima’s listening - and Vax feels the group draw a collective breath as Keyleth and Kima hold each other’s gaze.

“I - just wanted to apologize,” Keyleth gets out suddenly.

“For?” Kima asks quietly. Still guarded, clearly not entirely believing the apology.

Keyleth swallows hard. “For - if I came across too harshly that night.”

“It - it's honestly not a worry,” Kima says, raising a hand gently, a look of understanding mixed with relief on her face. “War is stressful, and all of us have been through a lot, through this experience, I understand. I’ve been where you’ve been, and it's not uncommon to question everything around you, and with good reason.” She gives her a nod, pointing at her. “That’s what keeps you alive. Were you to believe every person that crossed your path, you would not have made it to past your fifteenth season.” She takes a deep breath. “I can assure you, as best as I can, that I mean the best for all of us. I just know that if we don’t do what we’re here to do, far more people will suffer than the few I’ve brought down here to protect me and for me to protect. I’m not asking for your trust, just asking for your patience.”

“Well,” Keyleth answers, taking in Kima’s words. “I can grant you that - only if you promise to grant us respect in return, because I feel you were a little untrusting of what we were doing upfront which I, once again, understand, but -”

“You caught me at a rough time,” Kima explains, rubbing at her wrists almost absentmindedly - almost as if she were rubbing at the ghost of the shackles that had held her for so long in that dungeon.

“Same here,” Keyleth agrees, her grip on her quarterstaff tightening - not threateningly, no. Vax could see that she was doing it to comfort herself, to ground herself. She was holding onto a piece from the natural world she knew, a piece of the world she was so far away from. A lifeline, not a shackle.

“Well, thank you,” Kima nods, and the tension fades, at least a bit.

Vax feels himself relax, turning to glance over at his sister when he catches sight of Scanlan - and the extremely noticeable tent in his pants. “I’m sorry - Scanlan, what is that?”

“Oh, this bulge down here?” Scanlan asks, pointing down at it.

“That’s bedtime is what that is,” Kima immediately answers, moving past them and away from Scanlan. “Alright, everyone, let’s go ahead and find ourselves a rest.”

Vex can’t help but laugh as Scanlan poses with his obscenely huge - whatever engorging spell he’s cast on his nether regions. Percy gives a small clap, and Vax almost thinks it's for Scanlan’s awful antics but when he turns to Percy he sees him with Keyleth, giving her a quiet, “Bravo,” commending her for how the conversation had gone.

Vax wants to go up to her too, wants to congratulate her, wants to tell her that they’ll be up on the surface soon, that he’ll personally take her to the nearest forest and camp out with her for a week just to recharge her druid batteries.

But he doesn’t do any of that, and instead hangs back with his sister and Scanlan and Grog. Tiberius has gone after Keyleth and Percy, and Vax doesn’t want to crowd her right now. Two people keeping her company should be more than enough.

Still, as they all settle down to rest after setting up a watch schedule, Vax can’t help but think if he should have reached out to her. If he should have taken her hand, punctuating his promises and reassurances with a squeeze of his hand and the soft warmth of their fingers, intertwined.

**Author's Note:**

> man, do I love these two, and honestly, when Matt said "She brought you a heart" like that LINE it just stuck with me and wow man, just, wow
> 
> i'm so happy i was able to write this little fic, I've been slowly working on the next chapter of my ongoing [Shadowgast fic](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23872966/chapters/57385546) , and writing for these two really helped clear my head and will hopefully get me back in the swing of things for my other works
> 
> thank you so much for reading!!! i hope to be back again soon with more vaxleth as I continue the rewatch with my boyfriend <3 Take care of yourselves, and each other, don't forget to wash your hands and wear a mask, please, please, please follow the advice from health care professionals during these trying times, if you can get vaccinated please do, and we'll all get through this together, and, is it Thursday yet?
> 
> this fic was inspired by  
> The Throne Room | Critical Role: VOX MACHINA | Episode 7 - 1:30:30 - 1:31:16  
> Yug'voril Uncovered | Critical Role: VOX MACHINA | Episode 9 - 1:22:55 - 1:31:46


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